Eight Indians in HBR’s 100 best CEO list

Eight Indian CEOs have made it to the list of 100 global chief executives, compiled by Harvard Business Review (HBR), with ITC’s Y C Deveshwar and late Subir Raha of ONGC finding a place in the top 20.

Mr. Deveshwar was first among the Indian CEOs featured in this list, and cornered the seventh place overall.

Under his leadership, ITC delivered industry-adjusted shareholder returns of 1,574 per cent and saw its value increase by $ 45 billion.

The other Indians on the list include late Subir Raha of ONGC, at 13th place, ahead of Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani who was ranked 28th.

Larsen and Toubro’s A M Naik was ranked 32nd, followed by BHEL’s A K Puri (38), Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Bharti Mittal (65), Jindal Steel and Power’s Naveen Jindal (87) and Steel Authority of India’s V S Jain (89).

Meanwhile, the best-performing CEO over the past 17 years globally was Steve Jobs of Apple. From 1997 to 2011, Apple’s market value increased by $ 359 billion, and its shareholder return experienced average compound annual growth of 35 per cent. 

Others in the top 10 include, Samsung Electronics’ Yun Jong-Yong (3rd), followed by Vale’s Roger Agnelli (4), Gilead Sciences’ John C Martin (5), Hyundai Motor Company’s Chung Mong-Koo (6), ITC’s Y C Deveshwar (7), Simon Property Group’s David Simon (8), eBay’s Margaret C Whitman (9) and Cisco Systems John T Chambers (10).

The highest-ranked woman on the list is Meg Whitman, currently the CEO of beleaguered HP, whose performance as the CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008 earned her the 9th spot.

Interestingly, overall, only 1.9 per cent of all the CEOs studied were women.

The HBR 100 best performing CEOs in the world list assessed the long-term performance of each CEO, from the first day on the job to the last and for CEOs still in office, until August 31, 2012.

The list accessed how much total shareholder returns had changed over the tenure of the respective CEO, and the overall increase in market capitalisation.

Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowships (Akademi Ratna) and Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the Year 2012

The General Council of Sangeet Natak Akademi, the National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama, New Delhi at its meeting held on 21 December 2012 elected three (3) eminent personalities in the field of performing arts, namely N. Rajam, T.H. Vinayakram and Ratan Thiyam as Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows (Akademi Ratna).  The Fellowship of the Akademi is the most prestigious and rare honour, which is restricted to a very limited number at a given time.  Presently there are only 40 Fellows of the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

The General Council of the Akademi also selected thirty six (36) persons from the fields of Music, Dance, Theatre and Puppetry for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the year 2012.

In the field of Music, nine eminent artists, namely Rajashekhar Mansur and  Ajay Pohankar for Hindustani Vocal Music, Sabir Khan (Tabla) and Bahauddin Dagar (Rudra Veena) for Hindustani Instrumental Music, O.S. Thyagarajan for Carnatic Vocal Music, Mysore M. Nagaraja, (Violin) and K.V. Prasad (Mridangam) for Carnatic Instrumental Music, Illayaraja for Creative & Experimental Music and Bhai Balbir Singh Ragi (Gurbani) for Other Major Traditions of Music have been selected for the Akademi Award 2012.

In the field of Dance, nine eminent practitioners, namely  Priyadarsini Govind (Bharatanatyam), Vijay Shankar (Kathak), Vazhengada Vijayan (Kathakali),  Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry (Kuchipudi), Sharmila Biswas (Odissi), Jai Narayan Samal (Chhau), Painkulam Damodara Chakyar (Kutiyattam), Jwala Prasad (Music for Dance) and Aditi Mangaldas (Creative & Experimental Dance) have been selected for the Akademi Award 2012.

In the field of Theatre, eight eminent artists have been selected for Akademi Awards 2012. They include Arjun Deo Charan for Playwriting, Tripurari Sharma and Waman Kendre for Direction, Parvesh Sethi, Nirmal Rishi and Purisai Kannappa Sambandan for Acting, Murari Roychoudhury for Theatre Music and Ghulam Rasool Bhagat for Major Traditions of Theatre (Bhand Pather).

For their contribution to Other Traditional/Folk/ Tribal Music/ Dance/ Theatre and Puppetry, eight artists have been selected for the Akademi Award. They are Goru Channabasappa for Folk Music (Karnataka), Kinaram Nath Oja for Suknani Ojapali (Assam), Prem Singh Dehati for Folk Theatre (Haryana), Sulochana Chavan for Lavani (Maharashtra), Mattannur Sankaran Kutty Marar for Thayambaka (Kerala), Govind Ram Nirmalkar for Nacha (Chhattisgarh), Heera Das Negi for Mask Making (Himachal Pradesh) and Prafulla Karmakar for Traditional Puppetry (West Bengal).

Nandini Ramani and Arun Kakade will receive the Akademi Award 2012 for Overall Contribution/Scholarship in Performing Arts.

The honour of Akademi Fellow has been conferred since 1954 and Akademi Award since 1952. They not only symbolize the highest standard of excellence and achievements on a national basis, but also recognize sustained individual work and contribution to the practice and appreciation of the arts through performance, teaching and scholarship.  The honour of Akademi Fellow carries a purse money of Rs 3,00,000/- (Rupees three lacs) and Akademi Awards carry Rs 1,00,000/- (Rupees one lac), besides Tamrapatra and Angavastram.

Click here to see List of Awardees.

Chhattisgarh launched first food security law in the nation

The Chhattisgarh Assembly enacted landmark legislation by unanimously passing the Food Security Act, becoming the first state in the country to introduce such a law, covering several deprived sections of society left out by existing welfare programmes. The law also takes a major step to empower women by considering the eldest woman in a household as its head in matters related to the ration card. The Act considers entitlements under both public distribution system (PDS) and non-PDS on a household basis and not per person and places them under the Chhattisgarh Lok Seva Guarantee Act 2011. The Act makes food entitlements a right and its non-compliance has been made an offence. Officials can be penalised if PDS rations are being siphoned. The state government will pay for entitlements not covered by the Centre. While some households mentioned under the Act will get rice at Rs 1 per kg, several categories such as destitutes and disaster-affected persons will get it free. The Act includes all households of landless agricultural labourers, small or marginal farmers, workers in the urban informal sector and construction workers. It also defines a new category of “particularly vulnerable social groups” which includes households headed by terminally ill persons, widows or single women, physically challenged persons, all households headed by a person aged 60 or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support and a person freed from bonded labour. All households of particularly vulnerable social groups shall be designated as Antyodaya households. The law also makes foodgrains mandatory for all students living in hostels or ashrams, meals through dal-bhat centres or take-home rations through panchayats for destitutes and homeless persons, besides making special provisions for emergency or disaster-affected persons. The Act also includes meals for pregnant women and lactating mothers and children from six months to six years through anganwadis, mid-day meal for children of 6-14 years in school and supplementary nutrition for malnourished children. These groups will now have a right to food entitlements and officials will be penalised for any failure. Households paying income tax, households in non-scheduled areas who own more than four hectares of irrigated or eight hectares of non-irrigated land, all households that own a pucca house (concrete roof) of carpet area more than 1,000 sq ft in urban areas and are liable to pay property tax, are among categories excluded.

Union Government of India Constituted a Commission to suggest measures for Safety of Women

The Union Government of India on 23 December 2012 constituted a three-member Commission to be headed by the Former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma for reviewing the laws in existence and the lapses of the police to suggest measures for ensuring safety of women in Delhi as well as across the nation.  It would also look into the matter of the gang rape incident. 
Former Solicitor General of India Gopal Subramaniam and Justice Lalitha Seth are the two other members of the constituted inquiry commission. The commission would submit its report and findings within 30 days to the Government. Senior High Court lawyer Dyan Krishnan was appointed as the Special Prosecutor to ensure speedy trial and enhancement of the punishment in cases of aggravated sexual assault.

Madhya Pradesh Government set up a Senior Citizen Commission

The Madhya Pradesh Government on 21 December 2012 set up a Senior Citizen Commission to look into problems of the elderly in the State. The decision was taken during a Cabinet meeting chaired by State Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Senior Citizen Commission would comprise one Chairman and four members. The commission will try to solve the problems of the senior people of the State and providing an ideal platform for old persons’ policy for the welfare and solution of their problems.

Karnataka Announced Safety Measures in Public Transport

On 23 December 2012, Karnataka became the first state that announced some measures for making public transport safer via use of technology. The Karnataka government announced that it would equip taxis as well as autorickshaws with surveillance cameras as well as GPS for providing safety to the women travellers.
All the state transport buses would be equipped with the surveillance cameras. Apart from this, the deputy chief minister R Ashoka who has home department under him also announced establishment of fast-track courts for dealing with all rape cases.

Additionally, the deputy chief minister announced that Karnataka government would push aggressively regarding capital punishment in rarest-of-rare cases.
On 22 December 2012, a meeting of the home department officials discussed about the safety concerns of women.

Sachin Tendulkar announced Retirement from One Day Cricket

Sachin Tendulkar on 23 December 2012 announced retirement form one day cricket which put an end to his 23- year old glorious career.

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian Batsman who is considered one of the greatest batsman of the world after Don Bradman in Test Cricket and the second most successful one day batsman after Viv Richards as per the ranking done by Wisden-the Bible of Cricket. Tendulkar who belongs to Mumbai Maharashtra made his appearance in six world cups for India and was the member of the 2011 World Cup winning squad of the nation.

The major facts related to his one day international career are as follows:

•    Sachin scored 18426 runs in 463 one-day matches at an average of 44.83
•    Tendulkar made his ODI debut on his international tour against Pakistan in 1989 in Gujranwala, where he scored zero runs
•    He scored his first half century in the 9th ODI
•    He made 49 hundreds in the one-day format, including a double hundred which is the first in this form of cricket and 96 half centuries
•    He scored his first century in the 79th ODI against Australia in 1994 at R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo in a day-night match-this was the third match of singer world series
•    In the 2003 World Cup in South Africa he finished as the highest run-getter
•    He became the first cricketer to score a double century in the history of One Day international Cricket against South Africa in February 2010
•    He played his last One Day International Match against Pakistan in Asia Cup Dhaka played at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur and scored a half century to help India win the match
•    Tendulkar scored his 100th international century on 16 March 2012 against Bangladesh, where he scored 114 runs

NASA Ruled out Asteroid Collision with Earth in 2040

The Mayan Doomsday predictions about the world ending on 21 December 2012 had failed and additionally NASA ruled out the asteroid collision with Earth in 2040. NASA claimed that the fear of asteroid collision with Earth does not pose a threat to our planet any more. 

NASA declared that doubt about orbit of this asteroid called 2011 AG5 initially enabled that there were less than 1 percent chances of it hitting the planet in February 2040. Initially the scientists had estimated that risk of 140m-diametre asteroid collision with Earth was just one in 500. 

In case, this asteroid would have collided with Earth, there would have been a release of around 100 megatonnes of energy, which is a lot more than atom bombs used in World War II. Considering the statistics, it was found that a body as huge as this would have created an impact on Earth every 10000 years on an average. 

The observations were made while making use of Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. The observations were very challenging for the team. The scientists were especially surprised about the fact that a telescope could recover faint asteroid in the sky.

NEW APPOINTMENTS

• New President of India- Pranab Mukherjee
• Re-elected Vice President- Hamid Ansari
Secretary in National Commission for Women - Ajit Saran
• New Indian envoy to Israel – Jaideep Sarkar
• New Indian envoy to Canada – Nirmal Kumar Verma
• New MSME secretary - Vivek Rae
• New chairman of ICC Cricket Committee - Anil Kumble
• Junior pistol chief coach - Jaspal Rana
• India’s ambassador to Brazil - Ashok Kumar
• New Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau – Rajiv Mehta
• New FMC (Forward Markets Commission) Chairman – Ramesh Abhishek
• New Director on the Central Board of Directors of the RBI - Y C Deveshwar
• New President of Indian Newspaper Society – Tilak Kumar
• New Secretary Gen of Rajya Sabha – Shumsher K Sheriff
• New Chairman of Audit Bureau of Circulation – Shailesh Gupta
• New President of Indian Boxing Federation – Abhishek Matoria
• New Economic affairs secretary-Arvind Mayaram
• New Chief Economic Advisor- Raghuram Rajan
• New Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL)Chairperson - Shyamala Gopinath
• Re-appoint Deputy Governer of RBI: K C Chakrabarty
• New CBDT Chairperson- Poonam Kishore Saxena
• New Union Railway Minister- Pawan Kumar Bansal
• New Aviation Secretary- K N Srivastava
• New Election Commissioner- S Nasim Ahmad Zaidi
• New Chief Election Commissioner-VS Sampath
• New secretary to the Prez of India- Omita Paul
• Head of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award Committee - Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
• New CMD of Oriental Bank of Commerce- SL Bansal
• New Executive Director of PNB- S R Bansal
• New CEO of Prasar Bharti – Jawhar Sircar
•  New Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh- Virabhadra Singh

Barack Obama was named TIME's Person of the Year for 2012

US President Barack Obama was named TIME's Person of the Year for 2012, because of his historic win over the re-election in November 2012  which is being considered as symbol of the nation's changing demographics amid the backdrop of high unemployment and other challenges.
His name was announced by TIME editor Rick Stengel on NBC's Today program on 19 December 2012.

It is the second time Barack Obama is being accorded with this honour. He had also received the honour in 2008, when he was first elected as president.

Obama had won re-election despite a higher unemployment rate than anybody's had to face in basically in 70 years. He's the first Democrat to actually win two consecutive terms with over 50 percent of the vote.

The short list for the honour included Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head for advocating for girls' education, as well as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Italian physicist Fabiola Giannati.

Time's Person of the Year is the person or thing that has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year for good or for ill. In 2010, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg received the honour.

Last year in 2011 Time honoured "The Protester," citing dissent across the Middle East that spread to Europe and the United States, saying the protesters reshaped global politics.

Other previous winners have included Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Bono and President George W. Bush.

Junior Assistants in Dr. N.T.R. University of Health Sciences (Notification No. 18/2012) Final Key

•	Final Answer Key of Jr.Assts in N.T.R Health University :: Paper-1 - GENERAL STUDIES
•	Final Answer Key of Jr.Assts. in N.T.R. Health University :: Paper-2 - Paper-2
•	Final Answer Key of Jr.Assts.in N.T.R. Health University :: Paper-3 - PAPER-3

Assistant Social Welfare Officer in A.p. Social Welfare Service (Notification No. 50/2011) Final Key

Final Answer Key of Assistant Social Welfare Officer :: Paper-1 - G.S. & M.A. 

Final Answer Key of Assistant Social Welfare Officer ::Paper-2 - COMPULSORY PAPER 

Miss Universe 2012 is Miss USA Olivia Culpo

Olivia Culpo, Miss USA was crowned Miss Universe 2012. Olivia Culpo beat out 88 other beauty queens to take the title from Leila Lopes of Angola during the competition at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip.  Miss Philippines held the second spot, followed by Miss Venezuela, Miss Australia and Miss Brazil.
India’s hope of winning the Miss Universe 2012 crown crashed as Shilpa Singh failed to make it to the list of top 10 contestants. Ji Dan Xu, Miss China won the Best National Costume title while Laura Godoy from Guatemala grabbed the Miss Congeniality title. Diana Avdiu from Kosovo became Miss Photogenic of the year 2012. Indian beauty Shilpa Singh could not make it to the Top 10, though she succeeded in making it to the top 16 list.
As Miss Universe, Culpo will receive an undisclosed salary, a wardrobe fit for a queen, a limitless supply of beauty products, and a luxury apartment in New York City.

India won the World Cup Kabaddi Tournament 2012

India on 15 December 2012 won the 3rd World Cup Kabaddi Tournament for the third consecutive time in the Men’s category and second consecutive time in the Women’s category. Indian men defeated arch rival Pakistan with a decisive margin of 37 points whereas, Indian women thrashed Malaysia 72-12. Both the finals were played at the Guru Nanak Dev Stadium in Ludhiana. The Kabaddi world cup was a 15-day tournament. In men's category, third prize went to Canada and in women's category, it was given to Denmark.   

Indian men registered a hat trick by outclassing Pakistan in every aspect of game. At the end of the first half, Indian men squad was leading with a point difference of 34-9. India’s raider and stoppers showed an extraordinary sport in collecting points for their country. Women’s final was virtually a one sided show as Malaysian team was no match against Indian eves.

India Lost the Test Series by 1-2 after Nagpur Test ended as a Draw

The last test match between India and England of the Tournament England Tour to India ended up as a draw and with this India lost the four-test match cricket series against England by 1-2 on 17 December 2012. With this win England succeeded in ending a 28 year long wait of winning a test series on Indian Soil. Before this the English side under the captaincy of David Gower won the test series in India 1984-85.